Interview

From emerging talents to today's brightest stars, we interview musicians from around the globe.

An Uplifting Tragedy: Everybody Digs Bill Evans

by Peter Jones
September 16, 2026

In July 1961, 25-year-old bassist Scott LaFaro was killed in a car accident in upstate New York. Four days earlier he had accompanied Stan Getz at the Newport Jazz Festival, and a few days before that, he had made the legendary Village Vanguard live recordings with the Bill Evans Trio Trio that were released as Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby. Both albums are acknowledged classics of the jazz trio genre. On learning of Scott's ...

Lou Marini: A Solo Career Starting At The Age Of 80

by Mark McKergow
August 29, 2026

Saxophonist “Blue" Lou Marini came to the fore in the 1970s as a member of the Saturday Night Live Band and with The Blues Brothers on film, albums and stage. After a lifetime as an in-demand sideman (notably 26 years and counting with James Taylor), Lou has finally started to release albums under his own name, including Playtime (Hip Pickles, 2026) by Lou Marini and the Italian Groovers. Lou was in Rimini, Italy at the end of a short Italian tour during the ...

Petr Studený: Listening as a Creative Act

by Nenad Georgievski
August 22, 2026

For Petr Studený, music has never been a passive background hum. Since 1979, he has operated under the self-assigned title of “active listener"--a designation that treats the intake of sound as a foundational creative act. Based in Prague, a city whose “magical" atmosphere he credits as a silent collaborator, Studený has spent decades navigating the intersections of industrial noise, minimalism, and the historical avant-garde. He has emerged as a vital bridge between the radical traditions of the 20th century and the ...

Clément Reboul: How to Love and Learn Gypsy Jazz

by Scott Lichtman
August 20, 2026

While searching for gypsy jazz videos to spotlight on All About Jazz, this interviewer discovered the music of Frenchman Clément Reboul. Performing as “Clément Reboul's Jazz Manouche," he and his collective had produced a zesty version on YouTube of “Take the 'A' Train," among other gypsy jazz songs and adaptations. Having launched his gypsy jazz educational YouTube channel in 2009, Reboul possesses a well-thought-out framework for explaining the genre--what to listen for and how to get started playing--that ...

Zela Margossian: Music That Is Healing

by R.J. DeLuke
August 17, 2026

The music of pianist Zela Margossian draws on many influences. It's an amalgam of what she's learned from classical training, investigating of jazz, and her vast exposure to the folk music of her native Armenia. Her music is garnering praise for its varied textures and originality. It carries listeners down interesting pathways. Fans of varied music genres can find something intriguing. Margossian is of Armenian heritage, and that plays a big part in her art. But ...

Jussi Reijonen: Memory and Consciousness Not Visited Before

by Dean Nardi
August 16, 2026

In 2025, Finnish guitarist and oud player Jussi Reijonen launched sayr, his intimate series of recordings for solo string instrument with simultaneous release of two stunning albums. One is a fully improvised take at his home studio on steel-string acoustic guitar on an afternoon in March 2025, split into two contrasting arcs--"salt" and “thirst"--as on two sides of a vinyl LP. The other was recorded live in concert in Helsinki, Finland on steel-string acoustic guitar and the Arabic oud, September ...

Dorota Piotrowska: Jazz With International Voices

by R.J. DeLuke
August 10, 2026

As a child in Poland, Dorota Piotrowska was musical. She played piano and listened to records of music from America that her father was fond of, like The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Queen. At age seven her piano studies centered on classical music, as is the case with most kids taking up the instrument. But in high school, she had a friend who played in a band of his peers. She was invited to attend a rehearsal. There ...

Steve Swallow: Music Is Elemental

by Dean Nardi
August 5, 2026

For esteemed composer and bassist Steve Swallow, writing music is a long, sometimes arduous process that typically begins with only a cup of coffee in the morning before putting in hours, days, weeks--five months in fact, to complete the music for Winter Songs (ECM Records, 2026). For him, that is lightning fast. His idea of composition is to punch in every day, then sit there and sweat until notes, chords and rhythms emerge that co-mingle to his satisfaction.

‘I Thought I Composed That’: Terence Blanchard and the Inheritance of Jazz

by Kofi Adjepong-Boateng
August 4, 2026

Cadogan Hall, where Terence Blanchard and I met, was built in 1907 as a church in the Byzantine Revival style. When its congregation dwindled, the Cadogan Estate reopened it in 2004 as an arts venue, preserving Arild Rosenkrantz's stained glass and stone while the purpose was reimagined--a fitting room in which to discuss “inheritance" and “creation" in jazz, how new ideas are built within old walls. We have barely sat down, hours before he takes the stage with Ravi Coltrane, ...

Oscar Rossignoli: Expanding His Musical Journey

by R.J. DeLuke
August 3, 2026

When Oscar Rossignoli was a child in Honduras, he wanted to be a drummer. He was captivated by the instrument and when he went to church services each Sunday with his family, he would scamper to the front row and seat himself close to the drummer. The church services featured a band. His father, while not really a professional musician, was the bassist. Music was frequently played in his home in the city of San Pedro Sula, and ...